“200 Tcf of Recoverable Gas in the Beetaloo Basin” – Todd Abbott & Dick Stoneburner, Tamboran

Speaker 1 For our COBT listeners and viewers, it's Maynard and Mike and Mark Castellione. I'll explain that in a minute. I'm here with a good friend of the firm, Todd Abbott. Todd's the CEO of Tamborin Resources. I'm sure most of you might have heard a little bit about this story, but if you haven't, buckle in. And for those of you who have heard a little bit about it, it's about to get really interesting, not that it wasn't before. Todd's the CEO and the reason I gave that unique introduction to Mark is Mike and I are in Houston, but Mark is sitting in Daily Waters Australia with Todd Abbott. So we are doing this. We are testing the technology. The reason we're doing it is because, first of all, we're fascinated. Secondly, Todd was kind enough to invite us. But third, the big event is that Tim Boren is having their first gas celebration. So if you know anything about this story, you know that Australia needs some more gas and Todd and his team think they found it. So, Todd, thanks so much for joining us. This is this has got to be the coolest thing we've ever tried. Thank you. Speaker 2 Maynard, thanks for having us. This is a really exciting time and and what a great setting. Mark and I are enjoying a cool morning here in Australia and and we're going to have a good conversation today. Speaker 1 Well, for for those of you listening, please pull over if you're doing it on your commute and watch this video because the the scenery is amazing. It looks like a a set guys like you're you're shooting, you know, Australia, the oil and gas movie, but it looks so cool and Mark, you've been there. Now I lose track a couple days getting your getting your feet on the ground. Speaker 3 Yes Sir, here since Saturday. So what is Tuesday morning here? So been a been a few nights. I'm feeling OK, but it's great to be with Todd and what what we call the Australian Outback, right? Speaker 2 That's it. Yeah, Yeah. Speaker 1 Well, we're going to get into this, Todd. We first met you when you were at Pioneer. You're a 25 year veteran of oil and gas. Jeff Tiller would be mad if I didn't tell people you were an Aggie, but we met you at Pioneer. He went to Marathon and sit and then Seneca before joining Tan Borin. I think one of the stories, that's the storylines that's going to come out here. That's so fascinating is there is a lot of the shale community, the many of the big stars of the shale community are involved in your project and in your company. So we can't wait to have you compare compare this shale adventure to some of your previous shale adventures. Speaker 2 Yeah, it's, it really does feel like it's come full circle in a lot of ways, not just with the people I get to work with again, but kind of with the stage of the business. When I think back to the the really great fun days at Pioneer and, and there were a lot of them. It was those growth days or you know, early with the shale revolution. And we're, we're just growing as fast as we can with very supportive investors in capital markets. And there was so much work. It was just grab something and go. So it was a great opportunity to learn and develop and touch all the different parts of the business. And it was really the funnest part of the career. So to be back in a building phase, albeit on the other side of the world, but back in a building phase, along with Scott Sheffield, who you know, obviously known for a long time, Dick Stoneburner, our chair, I've known for 10 plus years, Fred Barrett and other legends on the board. Just, you know, people that I know that I trust that also believe in the asset that are engaged and and frankly personally invested in it. It's just a really great time where we kind of get to go back to the early part of the shale days again, but with the full knowledge of what we have. Speaker 1 It's quite cool and you make you make a great point, which is for those of us who remember the early days of shale, like what an incredibly fun dynamic, just best days of our lives. Now I'm sounding like an old guy, but I mean it, it really was fun. And you guys are getting a chance to do that all again. Speaker 2 Yeah, it is. We are. The team is really having a lot of fun and it's it, you know, it's, it's a blend of that. It's all the activity of those early days, but with all the technical knowledge that we have now. So we kind of you get the opportunity to go back and say if we were to go back and develop the Eagle Ford or develop the Permian, how would we do it today with the knowledge we know now? Speaker 1 Well, before we get too far in, let me ask Mike, give us a little bit of a teaser here. What's going on in the markets? What do we need to know before we jump in with these guys? Speaker 4 Yeah, Mayor, it's great having you physically back on set today. You know, he's got a few things to talk about today. First of all, from a bond market standpoint, 10 year bond yields are roughly 4.8% and 30 year bond yields are around 5.25%. And that was due to more hawkish tone by, you know, Chairman Walsh at last week's FOMC meeting. You know, this kind of now brings a near term interest rate hikes into the equation. Beforehand, people were thinking the Fed was going to basically keep rates unchanged and maybe even lower rates. That does not look like that's going to happen at least near term. You know, from a broader market standpoint, you know, equity markets, S&P 500, it's down about 1% this week. And it's mostly due to higher oil prices and a rise in, you know, bond yields. I'd say equity investors right now are looking at the FOMC meeting, which is going to be held on September 16th. And they're also thinking about what the midterm elections might have to do with policy interest rates and, and that sort of things. Obviously with second quarter earnings behind the markets looking at something. So it's going to be those two within some, my opinion. As far as oil markets, WTI this week is up about $6 a barrel to around $90.00 per barrel. And that's you really essentially due to the exploration and the tensions in, in, in, in Iraq. I mean, in Iran, you know, you've got the, you know, straight of Hormuz. I mean, it was calm for a while. Looks like things are starting to ramp up again. And so this is the first time that we've seen WTI price above $90.00 a barrel since mid-july. And so it's something that we should keep an eye on for sure. As far as the biggest story this week in the oil markets, it's got to be the 60 billion, you know, barrel deal with the Venezuela in the US. You know, I would, I'm not going to comment on the deal or anything like that. All I would say is if the deal holds over time, I think this is probably going to be a net positive for Gulf Coast refiners. But during the interim, it's not going to lower oil prices, it's not going to lower gasoline prices. It has long term to basically, you know enhance the margin of Gulf Coast refiners and we'll see how things play out from that standpoint. The other thing you know especially since we're talking to Tambourine today and they're really a natural gas focused E&P company, just wanted to kind of really highlight the European gas situation. Again, as you know, we've been talking about that for the last 4-5, six weeks. You know, storage is just not filling up as quickly as they need to be and just doesn't look like you're going to be able to get to minimal, you know, storage levels before November. And so there's going to be an up upward push on gas prices. Right now you have European gas prices around $25 per M, That's up another buck buck 50 an M just this week and it's up probably 3 or $4.00 an M in the last month or so. So something we're keeping a close eye on as far as the energy sector, we're up around 3% this week, obviously because of our oil prices. You know the thing that really stands out to me, we've had. Speaker 2 4 big deals. Speaker 4 In the energy and electricity sector, just this week, you know, we had SLOB, you know, SLB acquiring Caldeon for $4 billion, One Oak is acquiring, you know, Brazos Midstream for $4.4 billion, Comstock Resources doing a cash deal for 1.65 billion with SOCAR. And you have Fervo Energy, you know, having you know, mentioning 369 mega MW PPA with Google today. As far as the SOB Calvian deal, it's broadly in line with SO BS intent on getting in data center solutions business and SOB stock was up around 10 or 11% on that announcement. As far as the One O deal, it's interesting, interesting because they're, you know the funding this deal through a $9 billion non voting minority equity interest from Apollo. You know one O contends to use 5 billion of the proceeds to pay down debt and the other 4.4 billion obviously the acquire browsers midstream that stock was up around 1 to 2% on a deal. So, you know, I wouldn't say it's widely accepted, but I think people were pretty much happy with the deal. I'd say as far as Comstock Resources, they announced a $1.65 billion deal with SOCAR. SOCAR is a state oil company of Azerbaijan for a 20% non op interest in their legacy Haynefield assets, a 15% interest in the non operated interest in their Western Haynefield assets and a 15% in 15% of their 73% interest in Pinnacle. You know gas services. That stock is up about 6 or 7% today on that deal. The last deal we would highlight is the Furbo Energy PPA with Google. It's obvious like we said before, 396 MW deal with the potential to go up to 1 GW by mid 2030. That stock is up 30% today on that deal. So with that matter, you know really interesting that week. The one last thing we'd say is that it looks like we're going to be getting this Tropical Storm Edouard very soon here. And so we just want, you know, hoping that everyone basically batches down the hatches and and gets through fine with that, Mayor, We'll hand it back to you all. Speaker 1 Right. Great stuff as usual, Mike. Well, this one, Todd, we have, as I mentioned, we've had the pleasure of knowing you for quite a long time. So thrilled for you and thrilled for us honestly, that you became CEO just because we got to remember all those good times with you. And then and help you brainstorm a little bit about what happens from here. Do you mind just painting the picture of, of the basin and just the big, big picture potential and put it in the context of Australia, why this gas is needed, where this gas might go. Just kind of paint the the macro a little bit if you don't mind. Speaker 2 Yeah, I'll start at a pretty high level Maynard, and we can just just take me down as, as far as you want to go. I'll start with the scale because I think that's probably the most unique thing we're we're looking at for the basin, 200 TCF of recoverable gas in the Beetaloo Basin, which when I tell people that they'll kind of they'll, they'll shake their head and like Todd, did you really mean to say 200 TCF? Yes. And that's a reasonably conservative estimate right now. So you know, that can supply something if pick your number 5 to 6 BCF a day for a century. So when you think about the scale and the duration of an asset like that, it's unique globally. I'll also point out where it sits geographically in the world and that it's right here in the Asia Pacific and you're at a place in a region in the world where you have significantly increasing demand, you have urbanization, increasing populations, higher standards of living, you know, higher better quality of life. All that is an increasing energy demand. And alongside that many of their domestic uses or domestic sources of gas are declining. So it's an area that's increasingly reliant on LNG and we have this asset in Australia that's a long time reliable supplier of LNG to Asia. They've been doing it since 89. So it really sets up well to be a unique opportunity to so first provide gas to Australia and there are some domestic needs in Australia, but the scale of the basin quickly dwarfs that and and we'll get out on the water. I'll pause there because I know I'm I'm throwing a lot at you. Speaker 1 No, it's really good. I mean, for those of us who have been watching Australia, you know, somewhat and, and, and trying to figure it out. Do you mind talking about the East Coast and the West Coast and how those are different gas markets and and how the cause what's going on in the East Coast seems particularly interesting and particularly relevant to to your gas? Speaker 2 You know, for many in the US, if you haven't been to Australia, you may not realize how large Australia is. It is the size of the contiguous 48 in the US. And so when you think of Perth on the West Coast, it is a a market unto itself over there and a thriving energy over there. The East Coast is also its own domestic market. The East Coast market is around, you know, PC up and a half a day, something like that. You know it is a significant market and it's a market that it's the sources that have been providing it are starting to decline. So when you look out in the future, you can see a gas shortage and some gas needed domestically and that's a priority for Australia. So we have Betaloo up in the northern part of Australia, up here in the Top End, and it's just infrastructure requirements to get that over to the East Coast. And it'll serve 2 purposes. It'll serve those domestic markets, but it will also allow gas to get to those East Coast LNG complexes, which kind of ties into the other things we're talking about. Speaker 1 And I think Todd, the, I think the question we all have about Australia is, you know, where is it in terms of its energy policy? How is it thinking about various ways to produce energy? You know, the the country is a resource rich country. It's got a long legacy there, but it also has a strong environmental movement. How would you describe the receptivity to everything that's going on here and and how that how the country will or will not embrace everything you'd like to do? Speaker 2 Yeah, good question, Neil. Australia, it's it, it's a resource economy, right? It has a long history of mining, it has a long history of a thriving gas industry. And so you have a country that's very comfortable with that. When you think about the current market dynamics, I mentioned this, the the projected shortfall over on the East Coast for the gas market. So that's important. And they know that they need gas to support their manufacturing, their mind, their their industrial base here. That's going to be a priority and with the such a gas rich state, they will prioritize that rightfully before incremental gas goes offshore, the scale of the beetle who kind of covers all of it. So the way you will see this progress is gas will rightfully go first to the NT, which is where we are here. And the NT is the local or kind of state equivalent jurisdiction that we work with the most. And they have been incredibly supportive of everything we do. They are probably the most supportive regulatory regime I've ever worked with. And that includes Texas. They want the development to happen. It's incredibly beneficial to the state for that to happen, to the territory for that to happen. And they're setting a high bar for for regulatory standards and reporting. So all of that, all of that works. They set the bar very high and they give us every resource we need to get over it. Federally, it's a little more balanced. And you mentioned, you know, it is a, it is a country that is very proud of their environmental stance and their environmental policies. And so it's going to be important that any energy producer, including Tim Boren, does it the right way. There will be very high standards in place, but you'll see gas flow first to the NT, then you'll see a flow into the domestic East Coast markets as that infrastructure is built and then ultimately it goes offshore into the LNG processing. And there are huge financial benefits for the country for that to happen in royalties and taxes and jobs. Speaker 1 Do you mind talking about there in the basin, you, you mentioned the NT when these wells get drilled, who, who owns the wells, who gets the royalty payments? Like what? What is the what is the split of the economics in in this activity? Speaker 2 Yeah. So it's, it's different than the US where we have private land ownership. This would be more candid drilling on state or federal land, right. So the land is is owned by the Crown and our permits are through that. There's some really interesting ramifications that from a development standpoint. But I, I'll answer your question first is the royalties because it is onshore go to the Northern Territory, right, which is really important for the NT. A lot of the offshore developments would be federal royalties that would go to the country. So it's really important for the NT to get this basin up and running. There are other economic benefits and our native title holders, you know, the aboriginal holders here will benefit greatly from it. So there are some direct economic benefits from them. Interesting load, just kind of talking about the development consequences of it because it is, you know, or crown land, these aren't small discreet leases that we're drilling across. These are very large permits. So when we think about, you know, how you lay out your drilling plants, these end up likely being very long laterals and kind of a more uniform development than what you might see in the States. Speaker 1 Mark, let me ask you, I'm going to ask you to ask Todd. Let's let's see what happens here. And then Mike jumped in too. But Mark, you've spent your whole career in upstream, you've visited basins all over the world, particularly shale plays and particularly emerging shale plays, particularly you know of late. What's anything you're noticing in your couple of days and and Zing Todd with a question that you think he needs to answer given the fact you've been there for a couple? Speaker 3 Days. Yeah, well, shoot, it's they've been great hosts and we've had a great few days here already. One of the things I'm going to highlight a couple different things. One is on on two nights ago, we actually did a harbor cruise and we got to see the Ichthus Impacts LNG facility, which was really cool. We also got to see the plot of land for the NTLNG, which has a relationship with Tambourin and, and maybe talk and speak to that. But the other things we were in the field yesterday, we got to go to a rig that was drilling. This is a 10,000 foot deep well that's drilling about a two mile lateral. It's about halfway through the lateral. Was really fun to see that. But one highlight is one of the things that they've done that I think is unique to what I've seen historically is they've partnered with several different service providers in in particular this case H&P was the rig that was drilling. But maybe, Todd, speak to these partnerships and how important they've been to your your development of the field. Speaker 2 Yeah, that's a really important point, Mark. It's, you know, when we talk about a frontier basin like this, though, the first question we get asked is what about the services? How are you going to bring in the services? Well, in this case we have, you know, three premier companies that are in our equity stack. You know, Liberty Energy, H&P and Baker Hughes are all invested in the equity. I think Liberty's a top ten holder now. You know, they, they, they came in at the last offering as well. So very invested. It's partnership in the truest sense. So when you, when we talk about, I'll give an example with Baker, you know, if we need tools, if there's something available, even though it may not make sense with the amount of activity that's currently in the basin to bring kind of their highest end kit here, they'll bring it and they'll say, we, we need this basin to be successful. We want Tanborn to be successful. So we're going to put the best tools and we're going to hear have them here, make them available. We have stuff that are that's prototype stuff that's not on the market yet that we had access to and can use. Liberty is an absolute fantastic partner. They are entrepreneurial in every sense. And you'll see, you'll see extensions and amplifications of that relationship. And H and Pi think is the best drilling company in the world. And they've got the flex rig out here. They're doing a great job with it. They are. They were, yeah, they were, they were doing a great job with it. So, so we're kind of we're kind of bringing the party, we're bringing the whole team over here. Speaker 3 Yeah. And then the the other relationship is with AAPA, is that right? Yeah. Speaker 2 Correct. Yeah. So, so for those of you that may not know, APA is an Australian pipeline or company. So they're are partnered with us on infrastructure, both the infrastructure in the field and then they're doing a lot of work Maynard on the long haul pipelines to get to the East Coast and they get N to the, you know, to the LNG. Speaker 3 Complexes up there, yeah, yeah. One thing that that's particularly interesting you're, you're fairly new in your play, right, That drilled a few wells, but something that happened recently I think was pretty significant was impacts coming in. Maybe speak to that and how important that has been. Speaker 2 Yeah, really important for a couple reasons. So for those not familiar with the transaction, Impacts farmed in to a deal with Daily Waters, our joint venture partner on a big piece of their a kitchen we tagged into that deal. And it's important for two reasons. One, Impacts is a sophisticated incredible name that's making a big bet on the basin. So to see that kind of capital come into the basin from such a credible third party, it validates exactly what we're doing. The other part is it, it sets a data point on the market and sets an acreage value. And you could see that in our share price response. It matters. They didn't look like you'll see more people coming into the basin over time. Yeah, yeah. Speaker 4 Todd, great seeing you over there in Australia and you too as well, Mark. Hey Todd, since you know I usually cover the investor stuff, maybe I'll I'll throw an investor question at you. I looked at it before I came in the room today. You've got a roughly a billion and a half enterprise value. You've got 6 analysts covering you. Everybody has a buy rating. Stocks at 38 today, up 40% for the year. Analysts targets around 55 to $60.00. I kind of look at the company right now as a company where a couple years ago was an exploration concept type company. You have first gas occurring now. If we think about the next two years, how are you? What is the new narrative of the story over the next two years? Are you more of a drilling company? Are you more of a development company? What's the the story over the next two or three years that you guys are trying to get out to investors? Speaker 2 Oh, that's the right question, Mike. It is. Yeah, we are. The company is evolving just like the basin's evolving from what was potential to now going into production. Now the company is evolving from being, you know, an exploration company to being a production and development company. And so you'll see changes on how we approach the business and, and all the things that you're talking about, you know, looking forward, if I'm thinking about the next you, what'd you say 2 years, next two to three years, you'll see us hit first production, right and develop it. That's important for two reasons. One, revenue and production is always a good thing for a company. But really it's, it's the long term production history that we need to develop. Like right now, the longest test we have are about 90 days. So having something that we can demonstrate what these wells do over, you know, three months, six months a year really prove out the concepts of of of the play. So that's really important from a first production standpoint. The next thing we're looking at is the opportunity to expand our compression facility so we can go from our 40 million a day up to 80 to 100 million a day by expanding that facility. We're waiting on a few things to get firm service on some pipelines to make sure we can sanction that project, but that's the likely next step. And then after that you're going to see us doing more de risking and appraisal work around the larger parts of the basin. And that is to merit or to justify the large cap infrastructure. You know that the large format infrastructure that needs to come in the big pipelines, we'll likely do that along with the JV partner. You've heard us talk about that. That process is still ongoing, but that's where all that goes. And once that resource is proved over those next two years, now you're talking about gas sales agreements coming in, pipeline agreements, all starting off, and that's when the play is really rolling. Speaker 4 Yeah. And you know, the reason I ask that question is those are two separate type of investors. You know, 1 is, you know, the the exploration exciting story, the growth story into the development story is a whole different way. You basically have to sell the story and and the investors you're looking to go after. And so you probably are actively involved in that process right now, I would imagine. Speaker 2 That's right. We have when we were on site yesterday, we were on site with investors and it was that mix. It was people that are are large holders, people that are just now coming into it and then a lot of perspective holders and frankly some that are waiting on, hey, we need your kind of market cap and liquidity to get bigger because our ticket sizes are pretty large, but we're excited about it. Speaker 4 And maybe one more question. I guess it's just, I think the analogy made of you were in the business in the early heydays of the the shell revolution. I think it's really important to, to understand, have to have gone through that to, you know, to basically go through it now you know what you're going to expect, you know, where some of the pitfalls are and you know, basically the direction you're going. I think, you know, if you didn't have that, it would be a much riskier situation going out into the Beetaloo Basin at this point in time. So maybe just talk about, you know, comparisons then and to, you know, to where you are right now and, and where you're going. Speaker 2 Yeah, I think it's it's kind of having been through it, you're right. You know what you're trying to build, so you understand the process is you know where some of the hurdles are going to be. You know the skill sets you need in the company. Like you, you have a good feeling for all that different than them. What we also have now is we have a full appreciation for capital efficiency. So right now in the US, like we spent a lot of time on capital efficiency and getting really good at getting the most out of our dollars. So now we kind of get to pair those two lessons as we go through this phase. Speaker 1 You know, the the partners and, and the getting the services you need. As you guys are touring the field, have you brought in the people as well as like what, what is the, your, your workers, everybody that's making this happen? Are those, are those US people, Canadian people? Like what's? What are they like? Speaker 2 Yes, it's, it's all the above it Maynard, you'll appreciate this that not this trip, but the last time I was out, I walked down on the rig floor of the H&P rig and I'm just chatting with the floor hands out there. And you know, I recognize an accent and I say, where are you from? And and you know, this guy grew up 30 miles from where I grew up. And so here we are on the other side of the world on the rig floor. And we had that kind of common thing and shared experience of the US, the US industry or the North American industry. But then the other guys on the floor, you know, you'll have an Australian accent or, or something else. It really is an international project in every sense. And so as you see this developed, you'll see a lot of North American skill sets come in and the experienced people come in. But we're also intentionally bringing in a lot of the local labor and local workforce force to come in and learn alongside of them. Because when this thing scales, we can't bring in everyone from the from the US. It's got to be a local workforce eventually to come up. And you know when you think of a duration of this type of of asset, it's got to be supported locally. Speaker 1 And I know we're going to get a little time here with, with Dick Stoneburner and, and talk a little bit about the subsurface. But do you mind just for the rig aficion, are the, the drilling aficionados in our audience just talk about what a quote typical well looks like, like how deep, how, how much pressure you know, how long to complete. Just give us a sense of what you think a typical well is. Speaker 2 Yeah, if you looked at this, well, if you look at the completion designs on it, it looks a lot like a what you see in the US You know, we, I, I'm getting used to talking in meters. Maynard I, it's, you know, it's oh, Mary ought to be on it. So I know, right, Three 3000 meters or so down and and the lateral we're drilling is it's a plan TD of 3000 meters for the horizontal, sorry, 3000 meter horizontal. We may extend that. We have some room at the end of that that if we if we like what we're seeing, we may extend that a little bit. But these are traditional, you know kind of shale reservoir horizontal wells that you would see completion designs are very similar. You know, our propping for foot loadings, our fluid for foot loadings are all kind of exactly what you would see in the Marcellus and even pressures aren't that different. You know we're we're really trying to start with a baseline of the known. We really don't have that many well penetrations right now. We're starting to get that baseline, so now we can start playing around with some of the variables and really understand what this rock needs because it is unique rock and Dick will talk you through some of the geology, but this is really unlike any other reservoir in the world from a geologic standpoint. Speaker 1 And is it, we keep talking about shale, It's it's literally shale. Like just tell us what a a snapshot of underneath what, what's going on down there? Speaker 2 Yeah, so I don't want, I don't want to steal too much of Dick's Thunder. But this was, you know, this rock is 1.31 point 4 billion years old, right? Compared to an A normal shell basins that's, you know, 5 or 600 million years old. And the line I love that I've, I've I've captured is that there was one form of life on the earth when this rock was laid down. So this is, you know, hundreds of feet of, you know, blue-green algae stacked up. So it is, it is a pure shale reservoir. It is incredibly uniform. It is desiccated. It's very dry. There's no free water down there. But yeah, it is a shale reservoir. Our analog is the closest thing in the US is the Marcellus. And you'll see some of the kind of the characteristics on some of our investor materials where you'll see it looks a lot like a Marcellus rock. Speaker 1 And the region doesn't really have any vertical wells or any historical oil and gas activity to to speak of or is that is that not right? Speaker 2 There are vertical wells, but there's not a lot of historical shale activity in the base. And there there is some conventional activity in the base. And you know, there's some stuff just South of us where there's some, but not at scale. It's not something like West TX where you had legacy vertical well production and now you're coming in with horizontal wells. We're really building new infrastructure on a frontier base in here. Speaker 1 And what what is it like has your phone? Because here you are with this new basin that's getting a lot of attention in a country in a region that really needs gas. What's the pace of interest in people trying to visit figure it out? Hey, what do you have going? Like have have you been able to? Is the phone ringing more than it used to? I'm, I'm guessing the answer is yes, but talk to us about interest from outside. Tim Boren about this. Speaker 2 Yeah, it, you're exactly right, Maynard. It is that we've had strong interest before, but we get a lot more inbounds now and, and from different types of companies, right. Because if you have, you have all of the local dynamics that we described in Australia. But then with everything that's happening globally, you know, it's become very clear that supply chains can be disrupted and physical resource matters and reliability matters. I think you pair that with a view that LNG is going to be an increasingly important fuel going forward. And I'll, I'll, I kind of think of the, the people that are interested in assets like this in, in categories or buckets. If you look at the large multinationals with large LNG exposures, they want diversified exposure and they need increased exposure in Asia. So it's very important for them to supply their LNG platforms and their trading platforms long term. If you think about US independence, look at where their portfolios are right now and the need to replenish those with quality inventory. Going international makes a lot of sense. And you've seen most of the US large caps start doing that. Australia is a place where they can do that with within a country that has a history of being a producer. And so it's, it's a much easier kind of first international step for a large cap independence. So we get inbounds from those. And then you could even talk about national oil companies or or people that are large suppliers of LNG that need to become more diversified that need more nodes kind of on the chain kind of like the multinationals. And then the last category bucket I would put in there would be the Asian gas utilities, Asian gas buyers who following all the disruption on their supply chains have a, a, a amplified interest in diversification, right? They are going to diversify across geographies, across routes, across fuel types and suppliers. And so when there are more opportunities close by in Australia that are, you know, you've got a, a low CO2 reservoir that's right here on the top end of Australia with a reliable partner and no choke, choke points between US and them, it just makes a lot of sense to prioritize it. So you're right, there's a lot of renewed interest and you know, the things that happen globally have driven that, but still within Australia that drives that too. Speaker 1 And it it seems like it's a hard question because you got more than you got plenty to focus on there. But in the true shale revolution that we all experienced, it seems like there was a period where we were all very curious about international shale. And then it sort of seemed like, you know, the US had so much opportunity and it was so unique that, you know, for some reason people stop talking about it. And now it seems like there's been a renaissance of thinking about shale globally. You got a lot you're focused on there. But does this you remember some of that thinking, I'm sure, has all of this made you think rethink the potential of international shale just even broader than where you are? Speaker 2 Yeah, we talked and, you know, we started our conversation about how we've kind of come full circle. And when I started a pioneer back in 2003, we were a global company, right? We had assets all over the world and you know, we were in West Africa and North Africa and Argentina and all other kinds of places. And when the Permian Basin took off, two things happened. One, we saw the inventory that was there, but associated with that or maybe more importantly, we saw the capital required to develop it. And, and in true capital allocation sense, right, we understand that those are our best returns. And so we sold off all of the other assets. We got out of the deep water, we got out of all the other stuff and all that capital went into the Permian Basin. And I think you, you saw a lot of U.S. companies do the same. The the inventory was of high quality and it was deep enough in the US that it made sense to focus on that and the capital requirements forced them to focus on that. Sorry, we got some local traffic. Here it is. Speaker 1 The most authentic This is the most authentic show we've ever had. I mean there was a there was like AI don't know it was a cow or a bull or something. A minute ago it was like walking. I thought it must join you guys. Speaker 2 It is, this is a, I cannot do that. I think I told you earlier, Mayor, this place is a mix of it's Luchenbach, it's Mad Max and Crocodile Dundee all kind of wrapped up in one place. But, but going back to the, to the, the dynamics there, there was so much capital required to develop what was in the US, That's where they needed to focus. But now we're getting to the point where all of these companies have strong free cash flow, their inventory like it's they're looking at that. It's hard to replace that quality of inventory within the US. So now with the capability to do more and the need to do more, it only makes sense to go international. And I think you're going to see a lot more of it. Speaker 1 You have, you know, geared up to tackle this thing. You know the right partners. The right is thinking through all the angles on your board. You have a number of interesting guys with a lot of experience, right. I think I count a couple former well known CE OS, a well known former research analyst, a well known investor. I know I'm forget you've got former execs like Dick. I mean, talk about all of that and how you guys, how you guys debate what's next and, and just there's a real interesting bench there. There been some stories about like, you know, former US shale legends heading to Australia. You know, there's some romance around all this, but maybe just talk about those discussions because you got a lot of brain power around the table. Speaker 2 We got a lot of brain power around the table. I look there were a lot of reasons for me to come do this. Like 1 is just the the fun of building something again, the the resources, you know, it's, it's a captivating resource. Like the opportunity is amazing, but the board was also a big reason why I stepped into the role. It was people I've known for a long time and people I trust and the capability that you're highlighting is really important. So for me stepping into it and know that I've got long time relationships from really knowledgeable people like Scott, like Dick and have other capability people that I've known, but maybe not known quite as well as those two like Ryan Dalton and Fred Barrett and Jeff Bellman, Phil Pace, we have founders on there like Pat Elliott. From there, Dave Siegel brings a private equity and and very shrewd investor mindset. Like we've got a really solid capability. And I would add maybe what what every CEO hopes for is the support of the board. It is cohesive and it is aligned to help us accomplish this. And you know, they're just. They're excited about it and they kind of get to do, you know, another shale play again. Speaker 1 That's really fun. I mean, we're all kind of, I noticed the smiles as we talk about this. Everybody remembers all that shale stuff. So exciting, you know, with so much enthusiasm. Mark, what else should we? You're right there. What are we missing? Speaker 3 Gosh, Well, I I want to reflect a little bit back on yesterday going out to the field. First of all, just say what an impressive operation across the board. The employees that we interacted with, you can tell they're fired up and love working for Tambourine, which is amazing. But one thing that kind of struck me yesterday is and it, and, and I've known a little bit about it before I got here, but it really struck me is your relationship with the community. And when we first got to is it, was it the first stop was at the Shenandoah 2 pad. OK, Shenandoah 2 pad, which is where the big commissioning event today is going to be, right? But you kicked us off with a little session right there, everybody together, all the investors, analysts, board members, yes. And you kicked us off, and you told us a little bit about the history of the land that we're on. Speaker 2 Yeah. So I'll start, I'll start with our native title holders. And this is a group that we work with a lot, do a lot of work to get to the agreements to produce the gas that we're going to produce. We really are in the Outback guys. I don't know if you caught the the buzz there. We do a lot of work with them. They've been incredibly supportive. It's important to us and to them that the benefits of this development flow to the broad community, not just the stake, not just the investors at Tamborne, although it will. And you're right, like the people that we work with, the pastoralist, for those that that may not know the term pastoralist, it's the ranchers out here, you know, the people that we share the surface with. It's just got to be a community effort right now. It's like we do anywhere else in the world that we operate. That's kind of our license to operate for sure. And so if this is, we know this is a long term development. So we're all going to kind of lock arms and do all this together. But it's, you know, it's fun building those relationships. Yeah. Speaker 3 For sure. I just thought it was really cool how you, that's how you began kind of the day really was acknowledging the history and the relationship with that community. That's really cool. Speaker 2 So, so maynor the the land that we're on, it's this is this has been inhabited for, you know, you it's a range of what the actual number is 40 to 70,000 years, you know, of people being here. So the history and, and kind of maybe that there's a weight on the land that you feel it's the the presence of it like it's it, it matters and it's material. So you can feel that in the relationships and it's just, it's so important that we focus on that as we move forward. Speaker 4 Hey, Todd maybe asked this, answered this earlier, but but but I'll ask it again. But how big is the beetle beetle Loop basin in, in, in, in land terms? I mean, is it comparable some other basin in the US right now just so investors have perspective And how much, how much acreage do you have within the beetle Loop? Speaker 2 Yeah. So our net acreage is about 2.8 million net acres might which is a, it's a massive position. The Bidalu in aggregate, I, I'll, I'll say the core in the perspective area, the Bidalu is depends on where you draw those lines 56 million acres. But we've got a, we're really the only company with a that has operated acreage on both kind of core areas of the basin. You know, the eastern and the western area. It's it's not unlike the Permian where you have the Delaware and the Midland. It's, it's similar and we have meaningful working interest on both sides. And then even on the broader base and we've got meaningful working interest across the entire base. And following our acquisition of Falcon, it I mean, it's, it's the size of New Jersey. It is kind of, yeah. Speaker 4 Yeah. The reason I asked that is because the other, you know, a symptom of the shale revolution was just the the shale acreage grab, right? I mean, that was half the story there, who's getting what. And it just seems like there's not going to be that story here that's you've already done that. I mean, there's going to be some acreage, but for all intents and purposes, you've got the biggest position there, correct? Speaker 2 Correct. Yeah. So the the acreage is pretty set and there's just a handful of people here. You have us broadly across the basin. You have Daily Waters Energy, which is a private company out of form and Terra, that's also our joint venture partner there in the pilot area. We work closely with them. You have Santos that has operated acreage over on the east side. We have a 25% working interest alongside their acreage. And then you have Beadalou Energy kind of adjacent to them over on the east side. The acreage positions are are pretty set. So it's not that, yeah, that land grab or that very competitive land game that you might see in the US and that allows for a little bit more cooperative process among the operators. Speaker 1 Yeah, I was just wondering, Todd, I find myself this is sometimes when I'm trying to explain our interests in this and what's drawn drawn us to it. I'll I'll reference what you've already referenced, which is the that the country is, is going short gas on the eastern side. And I, I'm just curious if you think this is the right focus or the right analogy. But in the US from that, you know, 2000 to 2006 or 7 period where shale had that dramatic growth, particularly in gas, we had a similar backdrop. Like our gas wells were getting less productive, we were getting more and more dependent on natural gas and we, we were kind of going short ourselves. And so it, it allowed a price spike that really drove the innovation which ultimately resulted in the in all those volumes. Do you, do you see a? Is that how you? How do you think about the parallels in in the in those years to this? Speaker 2 I, I, I think there are some parallels and there are some differences and I'll highlight both. Yes, you're right. There is this kind of, they see this shortage of gas coming to them and then there's this resource that's developing that can beat that. So there are some infrastructure requirements to get that done and and that'll happen, but that solves that. It's so similar to the US. There's kind of this in the US, like when we saw, you heard a lot of conversations about peak oil or, you know, finite resource that people would talk about not really realizing what the scale of unlocking the shale basins would really do for the country. And really providing energy independence for the United States and giving them an even greater standing on the global stage because now they're bringing energy to other countries. That dynamic exists here in Australia as well. And that they're looking at gas. They understand how important reliable fuel is to their economies. So they see the coming shortage. There is a natural reflex to say we need to, we need to keep some of this in the country because fuel security is national security. And just like in the US probably under appreciating the scale of what's coming right that it will meet that many times over. And so I think you're going to see that the pricing difference is it it's different here in Australia because there's not a liquid market hub like you would see a Henry Hub or WTI benchmark in the US. These are really directly negotiated contracts with counterparties. So from a domestic gas supply usage rather than just selling gas on an open market, you'll see us enter long term contracts with counterparties at a, you know probably a fixed price traditionally or usually fixed price with ACPI inflator on those. So it's a little bit different than what you might see in the US. Speaker 1 So if we were, if we were maybe trying to make it apples to apples just to understand better the economics is there like when you think about the next five years, let's say, do you have a target in mind for, you know, what you're finding cost might be per MCF or what, what's a metric that the rest of us could relate to that would illustrate where this basin might rank, you know, relative to the other basins around the world? Speaker 2 Yeah. So when we look at our, when we look at our DNC cost and we project those out and we've come down the cost curve, we're nowhere near where we want to be. That will come down as more service companies come into the basins, as we get additional equipment in the basins, as we move into continuous drilling programs. Just like we saw all in the US, we're pretty confident we'll get down to US cost structures very close to it. You know, there are some labor differences, you know, some kind of basic cost inputs that are different here in Australia. They could keep that slightly above what we saw in the US, but it's not that far above. And and maybe to contrast that or bring it back to the margin, you know your gas prices, you know two to three times what you would see domestically, it's a probably closer to three times what you would see in the US All right. So your margins that gets much greater here in Australia than what you might see in the US despite the slightly higher cost in a full development case. Speaker 1 And, and when you, when you think about everything that's to come, what are the, and sorry, this is like a, the tougher question, but what, what is the thing you worry about the most in getting this to where you want to get to, you know, the production ramp, the, the mature Tim Boren? What, what is the piece of it that you're, you know, I don't know if it's the the biggest variable or the hardest piece or what, what to you what, what is at the top of your challenge list? Speaker 2 You know, I, I have pretty high, I, I live in kind of two worlds. One, I'm, I'm an optimist on what it can always be and I can see the path, but then I wouldn't be doing my job well if I wasn't a skeptic and always looking at what can go wrong, right. And I think you're asking the the next question. I have pretty high confidence that we're going to like, we'll obviously have first production coming online. I pretty high confidence that we'll be able to expand that facility and go further. The infrastructure is going to get built it the economics are just compelling and and the country needs it and the LNG processing and we have existing capacity and LNG processing plants, that's just it's idle. So getting the gas there is incredibly economic. There's expansion slots, quite a bit of expansion opportunities for LNG here in Australia. So I feel good about all that. The concern that I always have or the thing that I focus on and can't control is the timing by which all that happens, right? And so we do, you know, if you think this is a, you know, ten, $20 billion, you know, company when we're at full scale, pick your discount rate, but you know, a year delay is material. So we do everything we can to accelerate, to accelerate resource appraisal so that then we can justify those pipeline investments sooner and accelerate all that. It's really the timing is my biggest uncertainty that I think about Maynard. And then look, we're a lightly capitalized company. So just making sure that we have, we have great investor support now, but making sure that capital markets are always available to us and supportive matters a lot too. Speaker 1 Do do you mind if you've been so generous in so many ways that I'm going to keep you away from all this other activity? But since you just touched on it, investors, yeah, where where are you finding them? Where do they come from? What type of investors do they tend to be like just talk to us a little bit about that your investor make up and then including the ones that aren't yet in but may get in. Speaker 2 Yeah, it's, well Mike touched on it earlier, right. It's a pretty, it's a broad group it when you look at our investor group and we had a lot of them out on site yesterday. It's interesting to hear them all talking because we're like we're dual listed, we're on the Australian Stock Exchange, we're on the New York Stock Exchange. And so the investor group reflects those two demographics to a certain degree. So you know, just like on the rig floor, you'll hear different accents, you know, sitting around the table with all the investors. And so it really is kind of a global mix. It's been some of the people that Mike was describing that are interested in kind of, you know, higher risk or higher beta plays early kind of they're looking for the big push you're we're starting to see some of the transition of the larger funds coming in. We've got to get our liquidity up to give them more access to it. That's going to happen as you know, just naturally as we get bigger. I think we have really good support from our investor group, Major We. Speaker 5 When we did the. Speaker 2 Capital offering earlier this year, we were 3 1/2 times oversubscribed on a pretty large offering for us. So there's a lot of interest and really the question we get from investors is I, you know, they'll say I really like this, I'm really excited about it. When is the right time to come in or, you know, if we want to come in with a large ticket, we want to come in at your next offering and can you tell me when that's going to be? So those are the kind of questions we feel. Speaker 1 And and what just out of curiosity, like what percent are long time, you know, oil and gas based investors versus growth or international or or you know people with a different focus any rough? Speaker 2 Guess, yeah, I can't give you the percentage. I can tell you it's, it's a majority of people that understand energy at this stage, right, Because you kind of need investors that can look at the geology and see the potential. So people that had that skill set, there are some generalists in there. And I think as it gets more minimum, as we get cash flow and as the business gets kind of more easier to model for a generalist, you'll see more of that come in. But to start, it's been a lot of energy, energy specialists that really understand it. Speaker 1 I was thinking we caught you guys morning Australia time. But my question is after a hard day's work, particularly, you know, painful podcasts, you know, are you, are you guys going to hit that Daily Waters pub and what do they serve in there? We can see it in the background. It looks pretty tempting. Speaker 2 Yeah, Mark, you wouldn't tell them last night what what we were doing. Speaker 3 Yeah. So we had a big dinner last night and I guess the the big meal that a lot of people get is the beef and Barra, is that right? So which is a combination of beef and fish. So that was kind of the popular item. I actually had AI guess Buffalo burger and this is different the local Buffalo, I think so. But yeah, it's kind of wild. I had some live music going on. There's all kinds of people walking around and what's what they call the caravan park or whatever right over here. So like just a bunch of people showing up in caravans. So it's anyway, it's, it's a you like Todd said earlier, it's a super unique. Speaker 2 Place, yeah, it's a it's a diverse group, so it's a bunch of people listen to music, having barramundi and steak and and some beers and a lot of it's dressed like this, you know, after kind of being out on sight and a lot of people just on holiday enjoying the weather. So it's it's fun. Maynard, we got to get you over here sometime. Yeah. Speaker 3 For sure. Speaker 1 I, I can't wait you, you know, if it, if it weren't football season, I'd be there. But we, we did, Mark, I'm wondering, we, we did promise Missus Castellione that we'd get you back, but you seem pretty happy. I'm a little worried. Speaker 3 No, it's great. I'm, I'm really enjoying it. It's been fantastic. We showed up in Darwin. We had, like I said, we went out in the harbor Darwin a couple of nights ago. That was amazing. Darwin's actually a really nice town. It's a destination, tourist destination. I didn't appreciate that. But yeah, I'm like here in the Australian Outback. I mean, it's crazy. Speaker 1 Well, Todd, this has been spectacular. I think we were going to grab Dick for a minute and just talk a little bit about the subsurface and and his background and how he thinks about it, but there's been absolutely outstanding. Thank you so much. Speaker 2 Thanks for the time, Maynard. Mike, good talking to you both and Mark, I appreciate it. Yes. Speaker 3 Great. Speaker 1 Well, we had a a chance there to visit with, with Todd Abbott, obviously, which again, Mark, thanks for grabbing Todd and making that possible. But we're also going to visit with Dick Stoneburner. Everyone in the shale community remembers Dick, particularly from his petrolhawk days. Dick is the chairman of 10 Boren and and Dick, we got a great introduction from Todd. I went through a lot of the so many of the key aspects of the company. I think what we wanted to do with you, Todd said. I'm trying not to steal a Dick's Thunder is we wanted to visit a little bit about the subsurface because we know a lot of our a lot of that community that that watches and listens to COBT. They're quite knowledgeable when it comes to you, you know, geology and and also quite curious. So if if we thank you for joining and we'd love to impose on you to reflect on the Blu and talk to us about how you see it relative to the other things you've seen, you know, particularly your petrol hawk experience. But we just really want to turn the floor over to you and, and talk about the the technical aspects of all this. So thank you. Speaker 5 Yeah, thanks, Maynard. And it's great to be here with your team and try and get under the hood of The Beatles just a little bit. The thing that we've done really from the from the start, as Todd alluded to, we felt like the petrophysical characteristics of the rock were very comparable to the Marcellus, comparable to others as well. I mean shale plays don't vary a lot in terms of those petrophysical characteristics to be good, they've got to have those certain baseline frosty perm gas in place, all those you know kind of essentials. But we lined them up on that spider plot that we've all seen. It was really most comparable to the Marcellus and actually superior to the Marcellus in a lot of places. But the thing I like to take beyond that, which then gets into the unique aspect of this rock is what Todd alluded to. And that's the it's the oldest petroleum system in the world, period, end of story. At 1.4 billion years old, there will never be another known petroleum system that will be older. So, you know, that's kind of a interesting fact, but I think it goes beyond interesting fact when, as Todd stated, at the time this rock was deposited, there was only one life form little tiny single celled animals and all the other shale plays, all the other hydrocarbons were sourced from a variety of organisms, carbon organisms. And so when you think about, in my mind, the fabric of a rock that's created with a heterogeneous life form, like in the Utica or the Marcellus or the Eagleford, which all covers, you know, 3 or 400 million years of geologic time. And then you have something that was deposited in such a more unique fashion of just one single celled organisms dying and stacking up on top of themselves to get 150 meters of continuous thermogenic shale. So that's where I start going. This is this. This is different. And, and when I like to, to, to ask myself when we the little bit of production history and decline curve analysis that we can even imagine, it looks to us like these shells or or these wells from this reservoir are behaving differently. They don't tend to decline. We actually had a well at the tail end of a 90 day test that was on incline with no, you know, surface changes whatsoever, no dramatic difference in water production. So what does that tell us? I mean, we don't know yet, but I like to believe that we just have a little different animal that might behave a little differently. Speaker 1 So, Dick, one thing Mike had asked Todd a little bit about, you know, the scope of the basin and, and your position and such. Do you mind talking about the basin in total and and why you believe you're in the better parts of it? Like what? What is the variability across the basin? Speaker 5 That's a great question and I'm I'm going to give you an answer that has been interpreted by our Lee geologist Donnie Lockerie. And so I'm just regurgitating what his great work is, is delivered. But when you think about the, the greater Bedaloo basin, which is actually called the MacArthur Basin, it's all pre Cambrian, right? Because very, very, very old intracratonic basin means it's not in a, in an ocean setting, is in a craton. It is ocean oceanic, but it's within the the craton of Australia, which may be too much detail for this. But the point being is that that basin at deposition time 1.4 billion years ago was about twice the size of Texas. So it's a, it's a huge, huge basin that had a, you know, a realm like all, you know, intercretonic basins would have, and then a basin centered area that again was approximately twice the size of Texas. But then what happened was with time and with uplift and erosion and all the things that happened over hundreds of millions of years. And and I will say it's been pretty benign from a structural standpoint, but enough to uplift and erode about 80% of the rocks that would have been deposited. And what's left is the Beadalou sub basin, which happens to be in the center of the original Beadalou basin. So what does that tell you It it says that you have the core of the core remaining and all the fringe faces of that basin have been rotor away. So we believe that albeit you know, not extensively tested vertically or horizontally, you know, maybe 25 to 30 tests the consistency of the reservoir throughout that entire distribution of subsurface data is very consistent. So it supports the premise that I mentioned that Donnie came up with in terms of how this a basin evolved and just left us kind of with the core. The core, we don't have to worry too much about variability throughout the 5 or 6,000,000 acres that we're developing. Speaker 1 And when you speak of the subsurface data, what, what does the company have now is that, is that core samples, is that some seismic? Is that like, what is that delineation? Like how, how do you have that data? And I'm assuming you'll be getting a lot more as the as the company grows here. Speaker 5 Yeah, I'll start with the the original work program and, and, and prior to this, this basin had very little penetration or subsurface test, a handful, no production and a handful of tests across 6,000,000 acres. So that's a pretty, pretty clean slate to work with. So actually Amerada Hess had this license in the late 2000s and did about 6000 miles of 2D seismic because their original work program. So we have that all of that is available to us and actually to the entire industry by virtue of the non proprietary aspect of that data. So you have that that original ability to map the basin. Then some initial development by Santos, by origin, by a few other owners of the of the licenses started to kind of poke holes in the basin, so to speak. But it's still pretty limited. You know, there are a dozen or more wells drilled over that period of time. But that's when the, I think the the picture started to become apparent that we're seeing it pretty well present throughout the entire basin. And the core data, we'd all love to have more core as geologists and petrophysicists. We have a lot of sidewalk core. We have probably a limited amount of true whole core. And there's three different members within the bell carry. There's what we call AC. There's actually 4. The B is so thick that we think it has 2 landing zones. It's around, call it ±125 to 150 meters. You'll call it 3 to 400 feet thick. And then there's another member at the base called the A. So getting data out of all three of those potential reservoirs is, is not cheap and we just don't have enough. But I think as we, we, us and daily waters enter into exploit or or appraisal of areas outside of our development area, we'll gain more core and more 3D seismic. We need to shoot 3D seismic, we need to shoot micro seismic. We're lacking a lot of the tool kit, if you will, that we used in, in shale exploration in North America. But so far because of the benign nature of the of the of the base and not it's, it's structurally quiet. There's not a lot of faulting. It's consistent as I said, from reservoir distribution. We've been able to, I would say, exist without quite as much technical data as we might have needed in the Haynesville or the Eagle Ford or some other areas. Speaker 1 Dick it you joined got associated with Tim Boren in 2014, I believe. So you have really were a real pioneer around this. Do you mind just reflecting on that and what drew you to it way back then and with 12 years of visibility on on everything that's happened here, just maybe a couple of the of the key moments or key takeaways for you. Speaker 5 Yeah, another great question. And it, it started in 2014 when the current, the existing board and and management team made a conscious decision that they needed more North American expertise if they were going to double down on the on the Beatle, which was the company's decision. They needed to bring in more experience and a very good decision. I think everyone would agree. And so I interviewed for a board role and, and August of 2014, Fred Barrett same time. And so we both joined, you know, in that time frame. I'll back up to when I actually interviewed the team. And it was when about two weeks of when Santos pulled out the log on really the first basin opening test, there was a farm out from Canborn. Todd mentioned they have a 75% interest in A, in a license on the east side of the basin that we have a 25% interest in. Our 25% interest was or their 75% interest was earned by virtue of drilling this scrap test all the way through the bell carry drill, drill all the AB and the C. And when I'm interviewing, they put the log on the table and we leave through the log and I say no, you know, this looks pretty darn interesting. And so to your question, that's what kind of got me initially intrigued about the potential of this. I didn't know anything about it until I walked in that room. And then, you know, got learned a little bit about it, learned about the position they had, what their, their, their goals were. And it's just like Todd mentioned, like you've mentioned, the opportunity to step back and be kind of on the ground floor of another shale development was really, really exciting and it's still exciting today. Speaker 3 Yeah, So Dick, I'm one make one comment and then maybe a question better. You and I were at the rig location yesterday and you were you were speaking earlier about the age of this rock and I made a comment because the the wells drilling through the laterals, we're in the middle of the lateral. You have the samples coming back up and just the smell and you and I've been around a few drilling rigs in our egg, right. So, but the smell was just very, excuse me, unusual in my mind. And I made that comment and I think you you acknowledged it too. And maybe it has something to do with the age of the rock and the gas. Who knows? We don't know, but we're making. Speaker 5 It up at this point they can't prove us wrong. Right. Exactly. But I really have a sense that because I've been on you know in my 50 years of experience, I've smelled a lot of you know, aromas, if you will coming off a shell shaker and it's different. And so if the rock is different it's just I think further supports the premise that we have a unique reservoir here. What what that mean we can guess we'll find out sooner. Not for sure, yeah. Speaker 3 One thing I wanted to talk a little bit about and ask you about because you you shared this story yesterday and I think it would be good to share it again, but we were eating lunch at the man camp, which was fun. It's always fun to kind of be on site and eat, eat where, where the employees are eating and all that stuff. And it was just really, really a good setting. But you're sharing a story at lunch there around some of the original drilling was drilled kind of near a road. I called it roadology. That was my term, not yours. But maybe speak to kind of that tell that story again about when that where that well was drilled was more normally pressured and then versus where you're drilling today and the differences and. Speaker 5 Yeah, I, I, I think it is a fascinating story. 1 classic risk analysis with oil and gas exploration. So we closed the origin transaction in the fall of 2022, which took our holdings from call it couple 100,000 acres to between US and daily waters. We each had about 2,000,000 acres, but it was a very, the timeline of the closing took us to budding and operating a well immediately upon closing. So that well was up near the road, near the pipeline. And I don't blame them. I mean, you know when you're drilling and you don't know any better, right? That's not a bad place to start. As it turned out, the wells just didn't quite perform as well as we would have liked. Part of it was self-inflicted, part of it was just the fact that it's normally pressured. And so after that experience, we went back and kind of went to the drawing board. We being Johnny again, I'm taking credit and I don't deserve it, But Donnie put together a model, subsurface, subsurface Model 1, using all the seismic to define the Depo center, right? So we have two Depo centers as Todd alluded to, one on the east and one on the West. The one on the east is where Santos drilled initially and now we have this untested depot center on the West. So that's kind of one very intriguing element of why one might want to step out from the road in the in the pipeline in the in the low pressure or lower pressure. And the other part, which again was a really interesting model that Donnie created part of from his experience in the Permian trying to predict G pressure, where a pressure cell might exist and why it might exist. And so we knew there was one on the on the east side. And so we mapped, he mapped by seismic data primarily the thickness of an overlying sandstone section called the Maroque. And that Maroque varies in thickness by probably up to maybe 30%. And those thickest Maroque sections were maybe not coincidentally they were overlying the deepest parts of the basin. And so we use the we as a collective group with Donnie leading the charge that that Morocque model predicting Geo pressure. So we wanted to go to the deepest part of the basin. We wanted to test where we might find Geo pressure which will benefit everybody knows increased reserves and increased gas in place. But we got pushed back from our 5050 partner. They thought it was too risky to move 60 miles from known control into the middle of basin in the middle of nowhere. And yeah, we kind of understood it. You know, that's a big step out. Not much control to to support that premise other than the work that Donnie had done. But, you know, after a lot of meetings and a lot of head scratching, they they acquiesced and the rest is history. Will move 60 miles South into the deepest part of the basin. This is where we're developing right now. It's where we'll develop for the, you know, course of the next couple of years where we'll deliver gas to the NT. So it's kind of an interesting, great geologic work, great geophysical work and good, you know, partner relations to even though we had a kind of a, a budding of heads in terms of whether this is a good idea or not, we both said, OK, let's go do it and we did. Speaker 3 It and it's a big deal. I mean obviously you know, there are some shell plays that maybe work with that are normally pressure, but over pressured is a really important aspect to having a successful play. Speaker 5 When you got limited capital and limited shots on goal right, right. We had to make them work and and it was risky. You you don't build a non revenue company and put together 2.8 million acres without taking some risks. Sure. And so as Todd and and and Maynard and the team talked earlier, you know, that exploration phase was long, arduous, successful in the long run, but it took a lot of cooperation or a lot of good work. Yeah, we were. Speaker 3 On location yesterday at the Shenandoah 2 pad. I believe it was the first location. There are three wells right there almost kind of right next to each other that have been drilled and those are the ones that'll get turned on here shortly. Scott Sheffield was there. We had a whole group there and he kind of led the witness in terms of asking a question really about spacing, because you see these three, these three well heads, they're very close to each other, but speak to the spacing that you're doing here. And, and it sounds like to me it's fairly conservative, but that's the right way to to begin a play. Speaker 5 Yeah. Again, to those that aren't familiar with how a tightly spaced pad is on the surface, those wells are 30 feet apart or so. We are, you know, drilling 3 dimensional wells at least on the 2 outside wells. The the middle well is more of a 2 dimensional well. But those three wells, once we hit the reservoir, after all the directional work, they're about 450 meters or around 717 hundred feet well to well, why 1700 feet? I think you probably alluded to one of those reasons. It's normally anywhere from a, you know, 4 wells per section in the in the stage is 13120 feet apart, right? So 1500, OK, we'll move out 1500 let's be a little bit more conservative and do it at 1700 feet. So it is a but we got 2.8 million acres. Yes, why would one go in there and say, ah, let's do a 1320, you know, without knowing any better. So I think it's going to be time will help us determine that for sure. We don't have any micro seismic, not that it's the beat all end all, but it's data, right? It'll give us some sense of track height, growth length. And so we learn more about that. We put these wells on production, continue to drill, we'll learn more about whether that's the appropriate spacing or not. I think like any decline curve, it's wrong, right. Any initial decision on a spacing is probably wrong, but I think it's safe and we'll with time we'll we'll tweak that, but we got nothing but time. Speaker 3 What we own, Yeah, it seems like the right way to approach it. We've certainly seen companies make the mistake of putting them too close together right on. But you right from the start, but you guys got like you said, you've got so much acreage to play with. Let's start with this and then figure out and go from there. But sorry Mike, I hugged the mic here for a little bit. Speaker 4 I think this, this, you know, I think this is kind of going to piggyback on that question, but I hear 2.8 million acres and it's like, wow. I mean, I think about the, the shale days of hey, go out and acquire as much acres as possible and drill it to hold it. I guess my question is 2.8 million acres. What does it take for you guys to do to hold most of that acreage? And I'm not, I don't really want to know what the, you know, the terms are, but just maybe some what it takes. Do you have to go out there and drill this acreage quickly or how long do you have to drill this acreage? Because that's a lot of acreage. Speaker 5 Yeah. Without getting into the weeds and, and I probably don't know the weeds as well as some of the guys that work the, the regulatory part of it, but we start with a exploration permit and, and we've got 5 or 6 different permits across the basin and the each permit has a work program and a term to that work program. They're generally pretty user friendly in terms of the capital that you have to expand and the operations that you have to do. But as long as you progress your development according to the timeline of that permit, you have a pretty soon. We've been at this for, you know, since 2009 in terms of having those permits in the first well in 2014 and here we are 12 years later and just kind of getting started. So we don't have much of A obligation or we have an obligation, but it's not a challenge to meet our work program. But once we get in, in the, the great thing about what we're doing tomorrow or today and then a few days down the road of actually turning the wells on and having production is we, we kind of lobbied the NT and the native title holders who are the royalty owners to allow us to, to test these wells, quote UN quote, prior to getting an exploration or excuse me, a production permit. That's your next step is to get a production permit. But that takes a lot more time. And we didn't want to keep these wells shut in with no production, no production history. So again, we, we put forth a concept to the, to the government and to the native title holders to get what's called a beneficial use of gas to avoid flaring. It's avoiding, you know, CO2 in the atmosphere is avoiding, you know, burning money so to speak. And so we, we got a, a successful outcome on getting this beneficial gas use of gas allowance. And so that's what's allowing us to produce. Now, in advance of the actual production license, to get to that production license, I'm only going to say that you go from a permit to you have an indiginal land use agreement. And that's primarily with the Indigenous folks. That covers what, Todd, 3/4 of a million acres, something like that. And so we get that ILULA, what's the acronym for the Indigenous Land use Agreement? And we're working that right now and we'll have that probably within 12 months. Speaker 1 So Dick, I, I referenced up front here storied history with Petrolhawk and we're all have been enjoying thinking back to those days of shale when when things were happening so fast and it and it was the revolution of the time. As you look at this basin and the wells that are to come and the data that is to come, what are you keying in on that you would point the rest of us to as some really key developments, whether they're wells or new data or as you think about the next 121824 months, what are some what are some big moments that you have on your radar as you guys, you know, figure out the true potential of all this? Speaker 5 Yeah, good question. And Todd has already alluded to part of the answer. And I think actually having long term production because we we can only guess what we think the client curve looks like, what the ultimate recovery looks like. We know there's a ton of gas in place. We know that we have good solid commercial gas rates through that you know 30 to 90 days pest test period that we have. But until we can really draw a decline curb at least the start of it, I think we are kind of guessing at what the EU Rs are going to be in these these wells. We feel good about them, but to have the confidence in in seeing a shallow decline and the things that we're expecting, that's kind of going to be not an aha moment. But at the moment that we're going to check the box and say, well, now we have a much better sense of how this reservoir is behaving. To me, the next kind of milestone might be and I'm kind of making it up testing another zone. We have again, well, the the middle zone, the B is so thick. We think we can wine, wine rack that, that, that reservoir like we do in the in the Permian a lot when we're stacking relatively nearby reservoirs in a vertical sense. So whether we go do a lower B or we go do AC or an A or whatever it might be, it's not tomorrow or the next six months or maybe not the next year, but sometime in the foreseeable future, we need to expand, potentially expand the resource base. I mean, it's big enough with just the B, but why not add to it from A contingent resource and then actually ultimately proving commercial another landing zone. So I would say those two things are probably the foremost in my mind in terms of kind of a subsurface progression of how we did it. You know, in, in the states, as you know, Permian is probably the best example, you know, first Wolf Camp B, Wolf Camp A, but then went down, went up, you know, what are the 15 or more target zones in, in the basin now? And all the basins kind of started with the juiciest looking rock, but then you go to the next level and next level, next level. And if you can prove all of them commercial, then you just give kind of a a huge growth profile to that resource base. Speaker 1 And and and is there anything you'd add you thank you for doing this, you and Todd bows and the whole team has been so generous with us. But anything you'd add from, you did see this in 14, you, you're, you guys are going hard now the country itself, you, you know, so for 12 years you've been going to Australia, seeing the attitudes around energy, seeing, seeing how Asia has been thinking about energy supply, just anything you would add about the macro picture based on all this time you've spent around the region? Speaker 5 Yeah, I think much like the rest of the world and use most of the people listening right now or or in North America probably and they've seen, we've seen call it the relaxing of the ESG movement, less pressure on the carbon question. Not that we're dismissing it, but we're not treating it the same way, right. I, I, I know listening to the COBT for as often as I do, there's a lot of talk about how we just need all the above, right? And So what I've seen in Australia is kind of a delayed response to that kind of extremism from a hydrocarbon issue. It's, it's still there. It still needs to be there. This, as Todd alluded, this country has a long history of, of protecting the environment, being stewards of the environment and will continue to be so. But I really do believe that I've seen to your question. I've been seeing it for a long time. Five years ago there was a really a lot of outside pressure. There's a, a, a, a party here in, in Australia called the Greens. You can only imagine what their position might be in terms of hydrocarbons. I remember when I first became chairman back in 2022, we had an AGM here in Sydney and we had to kind of have, you know, people at the door and worry about who's going to come in and, and maybe be disruptive at the AGM. And it was mildly disruptive. My phone blew up from a lot of texts from people that didn't want fracking and didn't want us doing what we're doing. That's, that's kind of gone away, not away, but it's certainly dissipated. So I'm, I'm glad the country is as a general kind of moving that direction, which makes our job easier and it's better for the country and in terms of my viewpoint. So I think that's the most obvious thing that I've seen above ground. I'll just make one last statement that what Todd has already said, and I can't say it enough. You know, I've been dealing with the, the NT government for most of this time, particularly over the last five or six years as we've gotten closer to, you know, doing real substantive things and it couldn't be more receptive. We're going to have a, a, you know, Patty server on the back session here in about 3 hours out on location and turn the master valve fakely. We're not ready to turn it quite yet, but it'll look like it moved and, and we're going to have first gas. A lot of people would have said that's not possible, you know, 56810 years ago. Speaker 3 Yeah, I might just chime in here, Maynard, real quick. And because coming today, as you've both alluded to the NT government, the Chief minister will be here, but also the Member of Parliament who is the resource minister, that's right. In the federal territory. Yeah, federal on the federal level who is happens to be from a different party than NT Chief, but they will both be here and they're both very supportive of this is that. Speaker 5 Absolutely. You know, from top to bottom this current administration in the NT is 100% receptive. I Todd his statement that it's even more receptive than Texas might have sounded like it was a a little bit of an exaggeration, but I don't think it is. They need it. I mean, they need it for their own somewhat existence. They need natural gas. All their power is supported by natural gas. They don't have a a secure supply of natural gas right now. So it's important. But beyond that, it's that it's it's getting the economy lifted. The the territory's never had an opportunity like this. 250,000 people. They live off of a federal subsidy every year to keep the company or the country the territory. Excuse me going so I don't think so it's an exaggeration as we take this field to call it full development and get it into a steady state that this territory is going to be completely different, might be a state the indigenous population will have a total different opportunity set in front of them. The the territories just never had this opportunity facing them and and they're helping, they're supportive and they want to see it happen. Speaker 1 Well, it's awesome. I suppose if if we had one last we said thanks. We need to say it again. Dick, send Mark home. We're pretty serious. He's not coming back. He's he's having such. I saw. Speaker 5 Him looking at the the flight schedules, looking for a little later time so we might be able to go at the beach or, you know, catch somebody on Monday or. Speaker 3 Something else? Let's do it, yeah. Speaker 1 All right, guys. Well, this has been fantastic, Mark. Travel, safe travel. Well, we're so glad you're there. We look forward to go. Mike, We got to go next time. That's a heck of an adventure, but really appreciate it and thanks everybody for tuning in.